SOME frags losing color while others do great....

[110galreef]

Not sure what the deal is. I have picked up a few frags locally that had awesome colors, then I get them home and a few days-few weeks begin to lose color to brown, yet others still do great?

Lighting:
2 -250w Phoenix 14K(8hrs) About 8 mos old now. Hamilton cayman sun reflectors, glass about 9" from water, bubs like 12" from water. will be adding 30 RB's for acctinics and 15 XM-L LED's (for a HIGH NOON pop) in next few weeks.

Flow:
4300 GPH CLS thru OM 4 way and ~ 850gph from return thru OM squirt 2 way. Tank has great flow and randomness and lots of polyp movement and LPS swaying going on!.

Params:
ALK: 8.3 salifert --8.9 hanna checker
CAL: 420 salifert
MG: 1350
PO4: avg for last 8 mos. .018-.024 Hanna ULR phosporus checker
Nitrate:0
Ammonia:0
pH 8.05-8.15 daily swing
temp: 77-78.5 daily swing

Misc:
dosing cal & alk via a bubble magus doser...~ 80ml & 90 ml/day respectively
Mg manual dose when/if needed. Not very often.
ATO via RO/DI water


Examples:
From a 180g tank with 2 250w MH's and 2 VHO's about 8" from water:
-5" Bright neon green Slimer frag.....dulled a little but still a bright green
-really bright yellow green sunset millie....lost almost all color after about 2 weeks. STN after that for another 2 weeks then died. Moved to my frag tank due to the citron goby.
-Purple Valida....light purple browinish ....went to all brown.

The last 2 I have a citron clown goby that seems to really likes hanging out on these and may have been a large part here....

90g T-5 light tank 6 54w bulbs:
-Nice Cobalt blue Echinata.....still the same as I got it
-Ponape Birdsnest yellow(touch of brown) with purple tips......Yellow may have lighten a tad(lost some brown) and purple looks great.
Unknown Acro with great light blues and greens....went brown in a few days.
-Tricolor acro...whitish base, Nice purple and green polyps....just a bit lighter now


Other corals in my tank are random as well......
Tyree setosa...great orange color
Orange & green cap, great color and growing like crazy,
sour apple BN. great coloring (lost it a while back ,but very nice now) excellent polyp extension too.
Pink BN....nice color
few other unkown smotth skin acro's(??) with great colors
great colored Rainbow pocopori
Bright Teal tip stag
Great colored cali tort


So it seems some have great colors and are doing great while others are turning brown...

Also I have a 40g frag tank that i have a mix of brown and great colors:
250w XM 20K (6.5hrs), 750gph Koralia, 250gph PH, & 150gph sump return

All other LPS, zoo's and clams are doing great!

:idea:

[110galreef]

any ideas?

[MammothReefer]

Hard to say I had something similar like this happen. Turned out it was a weird batch of RSCP. I switched back to IO did a few big water changes and after a couple months things started to all come back around. I've also found some pieces are more tolerant of parameter swings. I'd test your alk every other day for a week make sure it's now swinging all over, although with that much water volume you shouldn't be. Whens the last time you replaced your carbon and rowa, maybe cut back on some. It could also be some sort of pest..if it's just acros. I would cut a piece that's having issues and dip it see what you find.

[110galreef]

ALK is holding steady, just seems to slowly drop off over a few weeks at most like 9-8 over a 10 day period.

I have to dose about 95ml's per day of ALK over 8 times a day (~12ml's every 3hrs) and 80 ml's CAL (~10ml's every 3 hrs)

My ALK mix may be a tad diluted as when I was topping off my mix with RO/DI i overflowed it a tad.

[110galreef]

I replace carbon every 4 weeks. I use ROX.08 and run about 1.5cups. I don't use any GFO, rowa, pellets, etc....

whats happy and whats not is all over the place. Some acro's great color, some not.... Not a specific coral species. Plus one I get that have great color seem to lose it in a few days if they are to lose it. So i'd assume if I have the bug it would atleast take a few days to find the coral and a few more to effect it enuf to affect it's coloring. worth a dip & see anyway.

The browning leads me to believe more light or time needed. Would new bulbs or different MH bulbs help?

I can't wait to get the LED's up and running! But will be a few weeks. , by the time i order, they get here and I install.

[ghostman]

Your situation is the story of my life. I always seem to have 1 SPS that is just not happy and barely hanging on. I typically focus on making life better for this one coral and must resist the urge to constantly make changes. I had 2 frags of sunset monti next to each other from 2 separate sources. One thrived, while the other browned and sat there. Eventually the happy sunset over grew the frag next to it. They did not merge and the weaker monti seemed to die off. There was nothing I could do to make it happy.

[allsps40]

I see a few thing that could be causing the color issues.
1. you are not running any GFO and your PO4 has been at .024 while not bad I personally like to keep PO4 as close to 0.00 as possible and keep NO3 at around 5pmm.
2. your lighting is what I would consider bare minimum for keeping sps in a 250G, only 500 watts even if you added T5 or VHO for actinics still would not be enough. I highly recommend you switch to 2 400w MH along with the actinics you are planning to add. All you need to do is change to 400w ballasts and bulbs. Or you may be able to get by with adding another 250w MH.
Everything else looks good, flow is high and well balanced/random and stable conditions.

[110galreef]

I see a few thing that could be causing the color issues.
1. you are not running any GFO and your PO4 has been at .024 while not bad I personally like to keep PO4 as close to 0.00 as possible and keep NO3 at around 5pmm.
2. your lighting is what I would consider bare minimum for keeping sps in a 250G, only 500 watts even if you added T5 or VHO for actinics still would not be enough. I highly recommend you switch to 2 400w MH along with the actinics you are planning to add. All you need to do is change to 400w ballasts and bulbs. Or you may be able to get by with adding another 250w MH.
Everything else looks good, flow is high and well balanced/random and stable conditions.

1. if anything i feel i am starving my corals. Plus we all have seen many tanks with closer to the .05 range and have very colorful corals. the.024 is on the high side and I am usually in the .01x range. Plus i am checking with the URL checker which when i would usually check with the regular checker I would get 0 often. So i feel i am well with in range for colorful SPS. I could easily cut out the reef roids, coral frenzy etc and even get my PO4 lower and see if that helps. Overall most corals colors are fine, even harder to keep corals. Plus the last few frags I got came from "dirtier" tanks.

2. While I do need more light, i don't want to go 400w, especially when I will be adding the XM-L's CW and XT-E RB. I do need more light for a mature grown out tank, but the corals currently that are color lacking are definitly in the higher PAR area's of the bulbs( w/in 12" of center and no more than mid way down. Plus i know for sure my last corals i grabed only came from a tank under 6 54w T-5's. Of which my 2 250w MH's are more light for sure, and these frags were placed near the center of these reflectors and mid way up and slowly aclimated to the light.

Plus my frag tank is a 40g with a 250w MH and same results with colors.

if the 250's and the LED's don't cut it I can easily swap the 400w's as I got the lumatek select a watt balast 250-400w.


Would any supps help here? iodine, omega's, ???

[110galreef]

I should point out or reiterate...most colors are doing great, just a few that i picked up here and there that had excellent color would lose it?

Maybe just the way the coral bounces!?? Just want to be sure i am not missing something key!

[MammothReefer]

You still haven't addressed water changes. How often how much? If you are missing trace elements a few big water changes are the easiest way to fix things that you don't even know are missing or imbalanced.

[110galreef]

funny you mention this:

I just did a 40g WC, Carbon refresh & tank cleaning on Sat. This evening I ask the fiance, "is it me or do the corals look brighter and more colorful..." She says wow i was gonna ask you is it the wine ive been drinking or does everything look better?

lol
...So the two of us both noticed a big change!!


Anyway....I have been doing 4 week WC of about 15%. I have been trying to see if I can get by with less frequent WC's as my params have been in check from early one. I went from weekly, to 2 week, to 3 week and then 4 week. over a few mos. Never noticed anything off.

I have been dosing cal & alk to maintain, and as well dosing 2ml/day of trace elemnts just to be safe.

I will try to go back to 10% 2 week WC and see if that helps. Especially since I noticed brighter corals just few days after this last WC.

I used a mix of KENT Marine salt and IO. The Kent seems tad high in some stuff alone and the IO seems lacking a tad for me....so that has been my mix for last 2 mos. Corlas must have liked the change Sat!

[honkit]

2. your lighting is what I would consider bare minimum for keeping sps in a 250G, only 500 watts even if you added T5 or VHO for actinics still would not be enough. I highly recommend you switch to 2 400w MH along with the actinics you are planning to add. All you need to do is change to 400w ballasts and bulbs. Or you may be able to get by with adding another 250w MH.
Everything else looks good, flow is high and well balanced/random and stable conditions.

There is absolutely no need to have 400Ws unless it is a very tall tank (> 30 inches). A good quality T5 fixture with appropriate bulbs and reflectors or 250Ws is sufficient to keep particularly any photosynthetic animal.

[MammothReefer]

funny you mention this:

I just did a 40g WC, Carbon refresh & tank cleaning on Sat. This evening I ask the fiance, "is it me or do the corals look brighter and more colorful..." She says wow i was gonna ask you is it the wine ive been drinking or does everything look better?

lol
...So the two of us both noticed a big change!!


Anyway....I have been doing 4 week WC of about 15%. I have been trying to see if I can get by with less frequent WC's as my params have been in check from early one. I went from weekly, to 2 week, to 3 week and then 4 week. over a few mos. Never noticed anything off.

I have been dosing cal & alk to maintain, and as well dosing 2ml/day of trace elemnts just to be safe.

I will try to go back to 10% 2 week WC and see if that helps. Especially since I noticed brighter corals just few days after this last WC.

I used a mix of KENT Marine salt and IO. The Kent seems tad high in some stuff alone and the IO seems lacking a tad for me....so that has been my mix for last 2 mos. Corlas must have liked the change Sat!

Ah, well typically things don't happen so quickly. So if you've been slowly cutting back on water changes and now you see a decline, then do a bigger water change and things perk back up.. Personally I'd get back on the weekly wc wagon and see where things go.

[110galreef]

I haven't noticed a slow decline at all, actually a slow improvement of colors and growth. I really think the addition on the LED's will help.

I just noticed that the corals really responded to this last WC. I was really more concerened with why some corals that were just taken from a simple setup with excellent colors and placed in my tank that I would lose some coloring so quick while others would be perfect still....

Either way I will try the 2 week WC and see if things improve.

[MammothReefer]

I haven't noticed a slow decline at all, actually a slow improvement of colors and growth. I really think the addition on the LED's will help.

I just noticed that the corals really responded to this last WC. I was really more concerened with why some corals that were just taken from a simple setup with excellent colors and placed in my tank that I would lose some coloring so quick while others would be perfect still....

Either way I will try the 2 week WC and see if things improve.

Wait so the corals you are talking about are all recent additions? Corals almost always have some sort of initial shift when switching from different tanks and put under different lighting/flow situations. Those frags could have grown in 12DKH alk and now they are in 8.3DKH alk. That guy could have been carbon dosing but you aren't, or they could have been grown under a 400w bulb and 2" under the surface in a frag tank. Who knows every frag is going to have a different tolerance range for changes in water chemistry, and other parameters.

[110galreef]

Not sure what the deal is. I have picked up a few frags locally that had awesome colors, then I get them home and a few days-few weeks begin to lose color to brown, yet others still do great?


Examples:
From a 180g tank with 3 250w MH's and 2 VHO's about 8" from water:
-5" Bright neon green Slimer frag.....dulled a little but still a bright green
-really bright yellow green sunset millie....lost almost all color after about 2 weeks. STN after that for another 2 weeks then died. Moved to my frag tank due to the citron goby.
-Purple Valida....light purple browinish ....went to all brown.

The last 2 I have a citron clown goby that seems to really likes hanging out on these and may have been a large part here....

90g T-5 light tank 6 54w bulbs:
-Nice Cobalt blue Echinata.....still the same as I got it
-Ponape Birdsnest yellow(touch of brown) with purple tips......Yellow may have lighten a tad(lost some brown) and purple looks great.
Unknown Acro with great light blues and greens....went brown in a few days.
-Tricolor acro...whitish base, Nice purple and green polyps....just a bit lighter now


So it seems some have great colors and are doing great while others are turning brown...


All other LPS, zoo's and clams are doing great!

:idea:



Yeah that was the question originally.

[MammothReefer]

Yeah that was the question originally.

Must have glazed that part, either way I still stand by my statement do more water changes hahaha ;)

[tpallas]

I have the same issue. Even in frags taken from the same tank, some do well in mine, others not. I run an ULNS so I think it's a nutrients issue. Trying to up my nitrates and started dosing aminos.